PHOENIX — Mike White's eyelids are half-shut. His breathing is slow, heavy. Two days ago, he was hospitalized with pneumonia. He's still taking drugs to combat the illness and he blames the medicine for sapping his energy.

WASHINGTON — Border Patrol agents would be willing to give up time-and-a-half overtime pay if it meant they would not have to be furloughed as part of mandated federal spending cuts, their union president testified Friday.

HARTFORD — On a grimy CT Transit bus heading toward Bloomfield, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy leans forward on the edge of his seat, listening intently to a woman with a black and white polka-dot scarf around her head and pink Uggs on her feet.

SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, Chiapas, Mexico — A telephone call from a terrified voice woke Virgil Edwards in the middle of the night. From his New York City apartment, he heard the sounds of children crying and chaos nearly 2,000 miles away.

Phillip “Mando” Maldonado, a squad leader, shouts instructions as a dozen hotshots, firefighters trained to combat wildfires in extreme conditions, face a nightmare scenario: flames rushing in from all sides and their survival hinging on successfully unfolding and wrapping themselves in thin sheets of heat-reflecting material.